


Left Hand Tells

by Maeday



Category: Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-16
Updated: 2012-12-17
Packaged: 2017-11-21 07:53:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/595306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maeday/pseuds/Maeday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony pisses off a lot of people. A lot of people look for Tony Stark's weakness. The villain of the week found it but accidentally snagged the wrong model. Clint Barton does not appreciate his twin being kidnapped.</p><p>Filled for avengerkink. Full prompt inside.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Full Prompt:
> 
> "So the villain of the week has a deep grudge against Tony, and they capture Tony and his lover, Clint.
> 
> Only it turns out it isn't Clint that they capture, but Will, Clint's twin that no one know about (except for clint and will Themselves).
> 
> I want reaction and consequences of this. 
> 
> Bonuses if:  
> \+ the villain doesnt believe that this guy is not Clint. He thought Tony and Clint are trying to trick him and that pissed him off. It makes him even more sadistic. 
> 
> ++ Ethan is in the fic also. I love me some Ethan/Will.
> 
> +++ as I love whump!Will I'd like non con. But if its not author!anon cuppa then violence is good also.
> 
> ++++ and of course clint being absolute BAMF because he is fiercely protective of his twin."
> 
> http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/12672.html?thread=29181824#t29181824

Tony regularly pissed off a lot of people. Clint also regularly pissed off a lot of people although most of the people that he pissed off only knew that someone had shot someone they particularly liked. Tony, on the other hand, was an obvious target. He made people hate him, and then he pranced around in front of them like nothing could touch him - and maybe he really believed that it couldn’t know that he had his team of superhero backup dancers and the Iron Man suit. Still, it made Clint more than a little twitchy. 

The villain of the week happened to be someone that Tony has pissed off. This, in and of itself, was unsurprising. The Avengers ran into a lot of people that had a grudge against Tony Stark because the vast majority of their villains were scientists gone evil and Tony had a special knack for pissing off scientists in their respective fields by going in and acting like he was better than them. Clint selfishly though that Tony _was_ ,in fact, better than them but he kept that to himself, particularly when there was a gigantic, scorpion-inspired robot looming over him with its dangerous looking tail raised to strike.

“Guys,” Clint murmured into his comm. He wasn’t even sure that they would be able to hear him. “I have a problem.”

A sudden streak of gold and red and the familiar whine of Iron Man’s repulsers immediately followed his statement and he scrambled to his feet as elegantly as he could manage given the situation and the fact that he was pretty sure his right wrist was broken _again._ Or at least sprained. Iron Man landed next to him and the faceplate flipped up for a moment so Tony could peer at him thoughtfully. Clint let Tony poke at him with his metal fingers for a bit before rolling his eyes and shoving Tony away. “You have work to do, get lost,” Clint said.

Tony flipped the faceplate down but Clint saw the smile on his face. “Just gotta make sure that you keep out of trouble,” he answered. 

As soon as he was gone, Clint let himself wince and wrap his left hand around his wrist. Definitely at least sprained. He looked down at the battle below which seemed to be going fairly well, not much use for him this time around with the way that the robots were built. He tried to relax pressure on his wrist while calling out positions from above. The whole battle was over within the next few hours. 

Thor grabbed Clint off the rooftop and set him down with the rest of the group while they were preparing to go back to the tower and leave cleanup to whatever poor suckers were on Fury’s shit list that week. The villain, a Dr. David Harper the III, was being cared for carefully by medical because he had a gaping head wound and as much as they didn’t like him, they would prefer if he didn’t die on his way to prison. 

Clint wasn’t paying much attention to Tony when he heard the familiar clunking of the Iron Man suit on the ground. It was a token of his trust in Tony that he didn’t keep a sharp eye on him whenever he got near. He regretted that trust a little bit when Tony reached out and suddenly Clint’s hurt wrist was trapped in a literal iron grip. He couldn’t help the sharp shout of pain that he let out. 

“Hawkeye, to medical,” Steve said without even looking at them.

Clint glared at Tony who had put his faceplate up again. “I could have taken care of it myself, thank you.”

“Yeah right and that’s precisely why you think that your hand is a suitable replacement for a cast,” Tony snarked back.

“Sometimes I wish you’d get as protective over yourself as you do over me,” Clint grumbled. “I have _watched you_ act like you don’t need a cast before. Remember that time you broke three of your fingers and you just wrapped them together with painter’s tape. I remember that.”

Tony’s other painfully metal hand snapped over his mouth. “Sh, Cap doesn’t know about that.”

Clint rolled his eyes and tried to shove both hands away. “You’re going to bruise me if you keep doing that.”

Tony wiggled his eyebrows. “I know of better ways to bruise you.”

“Tony, would you please refrain from sexual innuendos in the presence of the team,” Steve said without much heat - the exact same words hadn’t stopped Tony the first hundred times they were used and they certainly weren’t going to stop him now. 

No one noticed Dr. Harper watching Tony and Clint suspiciously until he was loaded into a truck in cuffs to go to prison.

 

\------

 

With the entirety of New York slowly blowing up under the weight of aliens and mad scientists, other American governmental agencies were having to slowly put their own agents into the field alongside SHIELD, which required a little thing called interagency cooperation and also involved the agents in the field well… actually meeting the opposing agency people that they would be working with.

And since Will was normally such a good agent with more patience than a saint, Ethan was a big concerned when his partner had repeatedly neglected to appear at any debriefs or missions briefings that involved being around SHIELD agents.

“Do you have some kind of deep seated hatred of SHIELD or something?” Ethan asked finally when he caught Will cleaning his guns. Will took cleaning his weapons very seriously and he would never get up and leave them in pieces even if he was angry enough to storm out of a room.

“No,” Will answered plainly.

Ethan rolled his eyes and pulled over the single chair in the motel room and plopped down into it across from his partner. “Benji and Jane are getting worried about the way that you’re acting around SHIELD agents, or rather, not acting, just avoiding entirely. What’s going on?”

“When you say Benji and Jane I’m fairly certain you mean yourself,” Will remarked.

“What’s going on?” Ethan repeated patiently.

Will was silent, Ethan waited, the only sound in the room came from the steady sweep of the cleaning rag over the barrel of Will’s favorite gun. “There’s someone…” he trailed off and scrubbed viciously at the already pristine metal. “Ethan…” Will looked up and his expression was so conflicted between what looked like sadness and fear that Ethan just wanted to tell him that it was alright and he didn’t have to say anything. But Ethan had a duty as a team leader to know when something was wrong with his team.

“So there’s a problem with one person?” Ethan asked.

“Not a problem… really… well yes but the problem’s not with the person it’s with everyone else,” Will mumbled.

“Will, just tell me,” Ethan murmured, reaching out to lay a hand on Will’s knee.

“How much do you know about the Avengers?” Will asked suddenly.

Ethan’s eyebrows rose, “Iron Man, Captain America, the Hulk, Thor, and a couple SHIELD agents,” he offered. “They’re keeping the agents out of the news and the IMF can’t get any information on them. Apparently they were deep cover assassins before this happened and SHIELD’s not exactly happy about having to put their information out where other agencies can see what they’ve been up to.”

“Sounds about right,” Will grumbled. He set aside his gun carefully. “One of the SHIELD agents on the team… oh hell,” he muttered. He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I’m just going to tell you.” Ethan nodded expectantly. “I have a twin. His name is Clint Barton. He is one of the SHIELD agents on the Avengers team. He was also captured and brain washed by Loki during the alien battle and most of SHIELD doesn’t trust him. They don’t know about us being twins and Clint and I would like to keep it that way just like we’d prefer if IMF didn’t know. But I’m afraid… that if I show up, SHIELD will think that the IMF has been holding out on them and there are just so many things that could go wrong and I would prefer it if we were spared all of the idiocy that comes from trying to cooperate with SHIELD.” He finished with a sharp nod and leaned back, carefully moving his leg out from underneath Ethan’s hand.

Ethan, for his part, tried not to look as surprised as he was. “So you have a brother… a twin… and he’s a SHIELD agent on the Avengers team?” he repeated.

“Yes.”

“And you’re afraid that it’s going to cause problems if people know that you’re twins?” 

“Yes.”

Ethan nodded slowly. “Why didn’t you just say so before?” 

Will look genuinely surprised by that question. “Because… I’m not sure?” The little wrinkles on his forehead appeared that meant he was adorably confused. “Clint and I just decided that we didn’t want anyone to know, that was back when he was still doing mercenary work and I was already in IMF of course but… we just kept going when he was contracted by SHIELD.”

“Mercenary?” 

“Clint spent quite a bit of time on the wrong side of the law,” Will mumbled. “But he’s a good guy. He didn’t want me to have to be involved in any of it when I was trying to get into the IMF. We’re just used to keeping it quiet.”

“Right,” Ethan said. He slapped his hand down on Will’s thigh and smirked at the way Will jumped slightly. He pushed himself to a standing position. “Come on, Benji and Jane need to know and then we’ll see what we can do about keeping you away from SHIELD agents.”

Will offered him one of those soft, thank you smiles that Ethan felt like he got more often than he should. He leaned down to brush a kiss against Will’s forehead. “Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll take care of you.”

“I know.”

 

\------

 

It seemed that Dr. Harper was not as incompetent as SHIELD had originally guessed. He somehow broke free of the van on the way to prison and was once again hiding somewhere in the US, at least they assumed it was the US. Tony seemed to be unfazed by it but Clint had been fidgety ever since they got the news about it, considering Dr. Harper had started his previous raid with a robot to Tony’s head while he was still trying to get into his suit. Clint had told Tony repeatedly that he need to find a way to get that thing on faster.

Tony had insisted that they all decompress in the kitchen together making cookies and while they all had obliged after Steve had given them his best puppy dog eyes, Natasha and Clint were both on edge. They were used to taking villains out in a way that meant they wouldn’t be escaping transport on the way to prison - or, more often, the morgue.

“Chill out, babe,” Tony muttered, dapping a bit of powdered sugar onto Clint’s nose. Clint wrinkled his nose and wiped it off on the back of his hand.

“You should be more concerned about this. At least get some more security or something,” he said.

“I don’t need any more security. I have you. My very own live-in guard who’s more than willing to role play,” Tony teased. He tried poking at Clint again but Clint brushed his hands away and moved out of arm’s reach. The other Avengers were trying to pretend not to be paying attention to the conversation but only Natasha was marginally successful. 

“Tony, would you please take this seriously?” Clint asked.

“There’s nothing to take seriously,” Tony answered with a smirk. “We beat him once and it was easy. It’s not like he’s going to be able to sneak into my tower on a giant scorpion anyway.”

Clint made a muted, irritated noise. Tony risked getting close enough to peck Clint’s lips briefly as if that would make Clint stop worrying. “You’re adorable when you’re worried,” he said.

Clint pushed Tony away from himself carefully but with enough force to make it clear that he did not want Tony in his space right now. “I need some air,” he said lamely before leaving the room. He could hear Natasha chewing Tony out for being insensitive about Clint’s pathological need to fret about whoever he liked but he ignored them and went out to the balcony where the railing was wide enough that he could just sit on it like a bench instead of perch like he did everywhere else. Tony had redesigned the main balcony railings after finding Clint perched on his toes on the fiftieth floor one too many times.

The main floor that they all hung out on was on the fortieth floor, but Clint didn’t mind the threat of a deadly fall and he swung his feet on the edge of the balcony like a child. Tony meant well, he really didn’t want Clint to waste his time worrying but Clint also knew that Tony could be more stupid about his own safety than Clint was - which meant Tony was just shy of brain dead about his own protection.

The wind picked up suddenly and Clint shivered slightly but couldn’t be bothered to go back inside and hunt down a jacket. It was howling hard enough that he got down from the ledge mostly because it would be embarrassing to die from being shoved off a balcony by the wind but he stayed outside. He’d been in worse weather and going inside meant being surrounded by all things Tony. He plucked carefully at his hearing aids - one bad explosion in Chile had knocked out roughly eighty percent of his hearing. Tony was working on a “BETTER!” version of his aids for him. All he could hear was the wind.

He felt his phone vibrating in his pocket and he rolled his eyes and stepped inside so he could answer it. He didn’t know why Will would be calling right now but he always answered when Will could be bothered to contact his ex-con twin.

“You haven’t called me in two months and you want to know what’s going on _after_ I almost get my guts ripped out by a giant scorpion?” he said when he answered.

There was a pause on the other end.

“Will? You there, man?” Clint said, suddenly concerned.

“Is this Clint Barton?” a male voice that was certainly not Will’s asked.

Clint clenched his jaw. “Yes,” he ground out. “Where’s Will?”

“I was hoping you would know,” the other man said.

“Who is this?” Clint snapped.

“Ethan Hunt. I’m Will’s -”

“Partner slash team leader, I know,” Clint interrupted. “What happened? Where’s my brother?”

“We were on a mission in New York and we lost sight of him. We found his comm and his phone but he’s gone. We don’t know who took him.”

“Check his last text message for the love of god,” Clint snapped.

There was a pause while Ethan no doubt flipped through all of the wrong buttons to try to find the messages. “It didn’t send but it says it’s too you.”

“Read it.”

“It just says ‘scorpion red leather.’”

“Fuck,” Clint hissed. “Where are you?” Ethan gave him the address of their hotel. “I’m coming to you. Do not leave. Do not contact anyone. Do not try to find him. Stay there.”

“But -”

Clint hung up.

 

\------

 

When Ethan told Benji and Jane what Will’s brother had said they were both as nervous as he was. This Clint guy sounded nothing like Will. It took a total of twenty minutes for someone to knock on their motel room door and Jane answered it with a pistol in her hand. A pistol that was wrenched out of her grip before she could even cock it all the way. 

Ethan swallowed hard at the man that came in the room. He was definitely Will’s twin but he was bulkier in the way of a man who had spent the entirety of his life in the field and Will had mentioned that he was an archer. He definitely had the arms for it. And he was also lacking in any of the softness that Will had in expression.

“Ethan Hunt,” Barton greeted. “Clint Barton.”

“Nice to meet you,” Ethan answered politely, shaking his hand. Calloused fingers and palms and Ethan could see dozens of tiny scars crisscrossing the back of his hands and knuckles rough from fist fighting. 

“Phone,” Barton demanded, holding out his other hand before he had even released Ethan’s. Ethan handed over Will’s phone and Barton tapped at it in silence. Ethan regarded his clothing - obviously field worthy even when he was dressed casually. There were at least two guns and a knife hidden on his person that Ethan could make out but undoubtedly there were more. He also sported quite a few bracelets and a watch that peeked out from underneath his well fitted leather jacket. It was like seeing a weird, punk version of Will. “I’m almost completely sure that Will was kidnapped by Dr. David Harper who the Avengers fought earlier this week. He escaped from custody on his way to prison.”

“Why would he be going after Will then?” Benji asked. He and Jane had drawn closer in the time that Barton had been still and relatively non-lethal looking.

“Dr. Harper has a particularly vicious grudge against Stark Industries for buying up a few of his ideas in a not-so-legal way a few years back. And grudge on Stark Industries naturally becomes a grudge against Tony Stark. I assume that Dr. Harper saw Will and thought he was me and made a grab for him.”

“Why would Dr. Harper be wanting to kidnap you?” Ethan asked.

Barton looked up from the phone with a slight smile that was reminiscent of Will. “Tony’s… very affection regardless of who we’re around. Dr. Harper probably saw us post mission, drew conclusions about our relationship, and decided that I was the key to fucking with Tony’s head. Which is all entirely true but I’m more than a little offended that he thought that he could kidnap _me_.”

“He kidnapped _Will_ ,” Jane said in a tone that made it pretty obvious that she was offended by the insinuation that Will was easier to kidnap than Barton.

Barton gave a soft snort of amusement that was definitely a noise that they had all heard from Will before. “Will’s good, sweetheart, but he’s not me. He was an analyst for too long and he got sloppy. You can’t expect him to be back in top form within the, what, seven months that he’s been back out in the field since the whole Kremlin debacle?” 

“You’re not supposed to know about that. That is an IMF classified mission,” Ethan said.

Barton just made a quiet noise that pretty much said that he was listening to Ethan at all. “All I need to know is where Dr. Harper is with Will now and I’ll just pop by and pick him up.”

“You’re going to pop into an evil scientist’s secret lair and pick up your brother,” Benji repeated.

“Yeah. What do you think I do for a living?”

“I dunno, fight aliens?” Benji said.

“Lately yeah but that’s not what I do.”

“We’re all spies here, we can help.”

“Ah, no,” Barton said, tucking Will’s phone into his pocket. Ethan felt a rush of irritation towards this man who just suddenly waltzed in here and breezily acted like they didn’t mean a damn thing to Will. “We’re not all spies. I’m a deep cover infiltration agent. There’s a definite difference. I’ll let you know when you can pick him up from Stark Tower.” He turned to leave but Jane moved in front of him to block the door. He probably could have moved her but he stopped.

“Will means a lot to us and we want to help,” she said.

“Your superiors let you get away with pushing your way into missions like this?” Barton snarked.

“This is not a ‘mission’ and you are not our superior,” Jane said. “Will is part of our family too and we’re going to help get him back.”

Barton’s left hand flexed and Ethan noticed the movement only because it was an obvious tell for when Will was starting to get pissed. Ethan took the initiative to walk over so that he was not standing in front of Barton but definitely within his line of sight. “Look, Barton, we get that Will’s your twin and you want to be the one to take care of him but he’s also a member of this team and teams are family, you know?” Barton’s expression was cold and blandly uninterested except for the clenching tell of his left hand. Ethan tried to keep himself calm even when he felt his frustration growing, reminding himself that this was not Will and he didn’t know how this man would react to anything. “You’d want your team to be able to be part of finding you if this happened, wouldn’t you?”

“No,” Barton snapped. “I’d get my own damn self out of it but Will has a track record of playing the damsel in distress. I’ll get him myself. Thank you for your time.” He slipped around Jane smoothly before she or Ethan even noticed that he’d moved and was out the door and down the emergency stairs before any of them completely processed his words.

“I think we need to contact Tony Stark,” Ethan said. “Maybe he’ll be able to talk some sense into him.”

“Tony Stark doesn’t exactly strike me as the sensible type,” Jane answered.

“That’s precisely what we need then, someone who’s going to let us do the stupid thing and try to help,” Benji noted. “And he has cool toys.”

“Priorities, Benji,” Jane sighed.

 

\------

 

“Tony, can I see you for a second,” Clint said, suddenly popping back up into the tower after nearly three hours of Tony freaking out over JARVIS informing him that “Mr. Barton has left the building”. Natasha had only barely managed to keep Tony from donning the suit and running out to try to find Clint himself. She muttered about “hypocritical, care-too-much bastards” the entire time.

“Clint, where have you been?” Tony snapped. The entire team froze.

“I was out. Can I see you for a second?” Clint repeated, looking down at the phone in his hand that Tony didn’t recognize as his. It wasn’t a StarkPhone that’s for sure.

“Clint, look at me right now,” Tony shouted.

Clint’s eyes snapped up and he frowned. “What’s your problem?”

“You left without telling anyone where you were going for three hours after saying that you need fresh air and worrying about someone out there who hates me. Of course I’m fucking worried about where you were. Where were you?”

“Hypocrite,” Clint muttered. “I’m going to tell you. When you come outside so I can talk to you for a minute.”

“No you should tell me right now,” Tony answered. Clint was staring at him with such a look of betrayal that Tony almost took it all back. “Where were you, Clint?”

“For the love of god I went to go see my brother’s team,” Clint hissed.

“Brother?” Steve asked.

“Yes I have a brother. He’s my twin and he’s been kidnapped by fucking Dr. Harper and you know _why_ that happened, Tony? Because I’d bet everything that Dr. Harper thought that he was me and he’s trying to get to you and I would like you to please fucking look for places that Dr. Harper could be so I can get my fucking twin back,” Clint shouted.

No one said a word and Clint just stood there, breathing more heavily than he probably should have been, trying to get his temper back under control. Tony was just wide eyed, mouth open slightly like he wanted to say something but for once in his life couldn’t think of anything. Clint spun on his heel and left the room.

“Tony…” Bruce murmured. “I think… maybe you should go do something about that.”

Tony seemed to finally come to himself. “Yeah. I guess.” He followed Clint. Steve yelled, “Apologize!” after him.

Clint was out on the balcony when Tony asked JARVIS for his location. He was going to talk to Clint when he got out there but the first thing he noticed was that Clint’s hearing aids were sitting on the balcony ledge beside him and if that wasn’t an indication that Clint wanted to talk then Tony didn’t know what was. He settled for leaning against the railing because there was no way in hell that he was sitting up there like Clint always did. Tony knew that Clint knew he was there but he tapped Clint’s leg anyway, irritatingly off beat until Clint turned his head to glare at him.

“I’m sorry,” Tony said. Even if Clint couldn’t hear him he would know what he said.

Clint raised his eyebrows and slowly grabbed his hearing aids and put them back in. “You know you’re stupidly hypocritical about this whole worrying business.”

“I know, I’m sorry,” Tony muttered. Clint spun to straddle the balcony railing facing Tony and if this had been _any_ other situation, Tony would be sliding his hand up the inside of those thighs in a heartbeat even if they were forty stories up. “What can I do to help you find your brother?”

Clint smiled slightly. “He tried to send me a text. Part of it was code from back when he wanted to talk to me but couldn’t because of IMF and me being a wanted criminal and irritating little barriers like that but from what he said, I am pretty sure that Dr. Harper is somewhere in the red light district. He didn’t have enough time to write anything more though.”

“I can’t believe you have a code word for anything even resembling the ‘red light district’,” Tony muttered.

“Well it was always a bit easier for Will to get into my space than for me to get into his. He can dress down and act like a douche but I’ve never really been able to put on a suit and act like I’m better than everyone else.”

“I think I would have liked to see you in your mercenary days. Bet you dressed like a ninja hooker all the time,” Tony said teasingly.

Clint let Tony tease him about his time before SHIELD because he knew Tony only did it so that Clint knew that he wasn’t being judged for it. “I did. I dress like a ninja hooker for you too in case you’re forgetting last week.”

“Oh yes we have to repeat that soon.”

“After we get Will back,” Clint demanded.

“After we get your brother back,” Tony agreed. “Now let’s see what we can do about finding one thieving evil scientist.”

Tony was already sending out messages on his phone and he didn’t notice that Clint was shifting closer and closer until Clint was behind him, sitting on the balcony still like the fucking daredevil that he was, his legs on either side of Tony’s hips. Clint put their foreheads together so he could peer down at Tony’s phone. When Tony looked up, Clint smiled and kissed him softly. 

“I’m sorry for not telling you where I was going,” Clint murmured when they broke.

Tony reached up and ran his hand through Clint’s short hair, stopping at his neck and pulling him in for another kiss. “Let’s get your brother home and then I’ll make all the remarks about twin fetishes that I want.”

Clint laughed.


	2. Chapter 2

Will woke up slowly, one of the first signs that he was not where he should be. William Brandt never woke up slowly when he wasn’t drugged or blissed out from being fucked by his partner all night and considering Will had no memory of such encounter recently, he could only assume drugs.

When he finally managed to get his eyes all the way open he started taking stock of his surroundings. Obviously underground, loud music from above so probably under some kind of bar or club, there was foul smelling water leaking down one wall from the ceiling, he was chained to a chair in the middle of the room, and there was only one door. He tested the chains thoughtfully before giving up. No use in rubbing his wrists raw for no reason. The heavy metal door swung open with a screech. 

“Glad to see you’re awake,” the man that entered said. He looked haggard and there was a dirty bandage wrapped around his head. Will wanted to roll his eyes at the classic villain line but he had a shrieking headache and even the thought of moving his eyes too much hurt. “Hawkeye the Avenger,” the man continued and Will just wanted to tip his head back and sigh because of fucking course he’d been kidnapped because someone thought he was Clint. 

“I’m not Hawkeye,” Will said blandly, interrupting whatever monologue the villain had been about to launch into. 

The man raised his eyebrows. “You’re going to have to do better than that to get me to let you go.”

“Oh I’m not trying to get you to let me go. I just think you should be aware that I’m not Hawkeye.” He was so busy contemplating the ceiling that he wasn’t prepared for the sharp sting of a whip against his cheek. He flinched away and made a surprised noise.

“Not convinced,” the man said. He tucked the whip under his arm. “As I was saying, Stark will be looking for you soon, I’m sure. He won’t be finding much of you left.” He gave Will a dark smile and for a moment, Will was suddenly more than a bit frightened for his own safety.

———

“Sir, three agents from IMF are at the door asking to see you,” JARVIS stated a few hours later when Tony was deep in research in his lab, looking for any possible way to track down Dr. Harper. 

“What do they want?” he asked distractedly. Clint had left just a few minutes previously to go try to find something to eat. He’d been tense and nervous and Tony knew that he’d left only because he was starting to feel closed in, even in the gigantic area that was Tony’s primary lab.

“They say they are teammates of William Brandt, Mr. Barton’s brother, and they would like to speak with you without Mr. Barton’s presence.” 

Tony stopped what he was doing and looked over at a screen displaying the front of the building where two men and a woman were waiting to be let in. “Don’t let them in, I’m going down to meet them.”

“Yessir.”

Tony took the accelerated elevator and reached the front door in a couple of minutes. JARVIS let the newcomers into the lobby and Tony didn’t offer them a seat. He crossed his arms with an expectant look because if they couldn’t recognize him without him giving his name then they sure as hell wouldn’t be allowed in his tower.

“Barton doesn’t want to let us be part of the search for Will and we want in on it,” the dark haired man said bluntly.

“If Clint says no I think that means no,” Tony answered.

“No,” the other man said with a hint of desperation, “Will’s my… Will’s my lover and I need to help. You would want to go looking for Clint if this happened to him, wouldn’t you?” he asked.

“That was a low blow,” Tony said. He paused. “I like it. Why doesn’t he want you in on this?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t say.”

“JARVIS,” Tony called.

“Sir,” JARVIS answered. The blonde man looked like he was about to have a nerdgasm.

“Where’s Clint?”

“Mr. Barton is currently in your lab looking for you, sir. Should I let him know of your location?”

“No, tell him I’ll be right up. Don’t say anything about the three amigos.”

“Yessir.”

“Come on, children,” Tony said. “Let’s go see why mommy doesn’t want to share.” The three agents looked vaguely confused but followed him into the elevator and then to the lab. 

“Tony, there you are I was just -” Clint cut himself off when he saw the three agents following Tony into the lab. “Tony…”

“Can I keep them?” Tony teased.

“No,” Clint said with such a straight face Tony was mildly concerned. “I told them no.”

“Yes well I think they have valid reason to want to be part of this,” Tony answered.

“Will’s part of our family too,” the woman said.

Clint got so tense Tony was afraid that he was going to snap in half if anyone touched him. Tony frowned and stepped over to his lover. He put one hand on his hip and the other on his face. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I told them no,” Clint hissed. 

Tony suddenly knew what was wrong. He brushed a thumb over Clint’s lips but his lover didn’t respond to the touch at all. “Can you give us a minute, agents?” he asked without turning around.

“Uh. Sure,” the dark haired man said. They left the lab and JARVIS immediately blacked out the wall of windows leading into it. 

“What’s wrong with family?” he asked.

“They’re not his family. I’m his family,” Clint snapped. “I watch after him. I always have and I always will. I don’t need any help to get him out of trouble. It’s my job to. I’m his family.” 

Tony bit his lip and brushed his thumb over Clint’s lips again. There were spots of blood that Tony hadn’t noticed before and he realized that Clint had bit down on his lip when the IMF agents came in hard enough to draw blood. “Clint, why can’t they be his family too?”

“I’m his family,” Clint repeated unhelpfully.

“You have us as a family too now, is that wrong?” Tony asked. Clint hesitated. “So you’re both expanding your families. Think of us as the in-laws. You don’t have to like Will’s boyfriend’s family or whatever but it would be really nice if you could at least get along with them.”

“They’ll slow me down,” Clint murmured.

“You don’t know that yet. Maybe they’ll be a help,” Tony answered. He dragged Clint a little bit closer by the hand on his hip. It was damn hard to move that man when he wasn’t responsive. “Just let them have a chance, alright? Don’t you think Will would want you to let them help?”

Clint managed a quiet huff of laughter. “He’d bitch about it for the rest of our lives if I didn’t let them,” he mumbled. Suddenly all of the tension went out of him and he leaned against Tony’s chest and let Tony gather him close. Sometimes it was still strange to Tony that a man this strong, both physically and mentally, liked to cuddle and be held and protected as much as Clint did. Maybe Will could help him figure that out once they got him out of where Dr. Harper was keeping him. 

Clint pulled away and straightened his clothes sharply. “Right, let them back in. We’ve got work to do.” The windows immediately cleared and JARVIS invited the IMF back in. Tony looked at Clint expectantly until he sighed and said, “You can help but with one condition: whatever I say goes. I’m your team leader, not Agent Hunt. If you do one thing that I tell you not to do or you don’t listen to what I say, I will knock you out and leave you wherever we happen to be.”

“Deal,” Hunt said immediately. He thrust out his hand and Clint regarded it like it was poisonous for a second before shaking it.

Clint immediately turned away from them and snapped at Tony to start pulling up everything he knew.

Tony was pretty sure that the blonde guy peed himself a little bit when all the holograms pulled up.

———

Will knew that he had a concussion. There was no way the world could be this fuzzy without something being wrong in his head. He spat blood on the floor but he was so weak that it just dropped onto his legs. There was a guard in the room with him, watching him while Dr. Harper went to go get some new tool that he wanted to try out on Will. So far there had been whips, a variety of knives, a taser, some kind of shock collar, and a blow torch that had made him feel like he was a chicken being fried.

He groaned and tipped his head back until he remembered that there’d been a rope around his throat about four knife cuts ago and it hurt like hell to move his neck in any way. He coughed as hard as he dared to try to clear the weird feeling of everything in this throat being squished together but it just made everything hurt worse. The guard was watching him curiously.

The door slammed open again and Dr. Harper appeared with a lidded bucket. Will coughed again to try to get his voice to work. “You’re really making a mistake with this. You’re pissing off more than Tony Stark this time. It’s a bad idea,” he managed to get out in a rough whisper.

Dr. Harper just laughed. “As long as Stark feels the pain of your loss it is my gain,” he cackled maniacally. 

“Stark doesn’t even know me,” Will groaned. But Dr. Harper hadn’t paid attention to him the first ten times he’d said that and he certainly wasn’t paying attention now. Will watched apathetically as Dr. Harper put the bucket on the ground and carefully put on gloves. He opened the lid and stuck his protected hand down in it and drew out… a snake. “Oh fuck,” Will whimpered. 

“Oh don’t worry, the poison won’t kill you immediately, you’ll suffer for a good long time before you die of this,” Dr. Harper said excitedly. He held the snake closer to Will’s body and Will tired to stay still and not be a threat but the snake was pissed and weaving angrily and Will’s collarbone was exposed. He screamed when the fangs sank into his shoulder. 

———

Ethan wasn’t sure about this Barton guy. It was strange to look at him and see Will’s face and hear Will’s voice but the words coming out of his mouth were nothing Will would ever think of saying. Barton cursed like a sailor, bit a lot of his sentences short when he seemed to realize just how awful he was being which might have been a product of the situation or his personality, and he snapped orders with the authority of someone who was used to getting attention. Ethan was fairly certain that Barton wasn’t a team leader, he didn’t seem like the team player type, but Barton was clearly used to being in charge in some capacity.

“Hah!” Stark said suddenly. Barton was immediately by his side, way up in his space. Ethan knew that they were sleeping together, obviously, but the way that they acted around each other wasn’t gentle at all. They snapped at each other, cursed each other, and pushed each other around. But then there would be random moments when Stark would put one hand on the small of Barton’s back and lean over him to show him something or Barton would trail his fingers through Stark’s hair and it looked like the kind of soft touches that Will loved to give and receive.

“Did you find him?” Barton asked.

“I do believe I did. Security cameras point to this little place,” Stark circled a building with his finger on one of the holograms maps. “There’s a sub basement under the club that is currently rented out to a David Harper who is definitely our guy. Red leather right there. Plenty of it actually, the place is known for the leather wearing strippers and wait staff.” Stark grinned up at Barton, “We should totally go sometime.”

“No,” Barton deadpanned. He tapped the hologram and it zoomed in to an accurate, blue, map of the surrounding area. “Do we have any blueprints of the building?”

“Tech-wonder,” Stark shouted at Benji even though he was less than three feet away, “Bring up that folder next to you.” Benji very excitedly got to tap the little blue folder icon beside his shoulder. Ethan was sure that Stark could have gotten his AI to do it instead but Stark was being remarkably kind and letting Benji touch lots of stuff. “They’re a bit outdated but they should work,” Stark said, expanding them quickly. Barton trailed his fingers over the blueprints quickly, his eyes flashing from point to point and Ethan was actually starting to have trouble following whatever routes Barton was planning.

“Well need to go in here to for the fastest entrance but if there are a lot of guards it would probably best to go in here,” Barton said, pointing to two different points on the map. “The main entrance that I assume is from the main part of the club will be the most heavily guarded, as will the main back entrance. I am not dressing up in leather and trying to seduce someone again.” Tony snorted at that like it was some kind of inside joke.

Barton was already walking away from the main holograms and shuffling through a locker in the back of the room that appeared to contain a variety of weapons. Stark was suddenly in front of Ethan holding out what looked like an extremely high tech earpiece. “This is for you,” Stark said when Ethan didn’t take it immediately. He accepted it and Stark gave one to Jane also.

“Hunt, Carter, and I will be going in,” Barton said, suddenly stripping out of his shirt without a care. Jane’s eyes widened and even from here Ethan could see that Barton had a myriad of scars that he had never even imagined on Will’s skin. Barton pulled on a different shirt and then strapped on a high tech tac vest with more buckles than Ethan was sure he needed. “Dunn and Tony are going to be watching from the outside in case something comes up.” He pulled out several guns and started tucking them onto his person. He looked up at the others not moving. “Unless you think you’re suitably armed to go into an enemy base you should get over here now,” he snapped.

———

The bar was called, quite creatively, “Leather.” Clint had snorted when they had pulled up in the IMF team’s van. Tony was already taking over all of the tech inside and Dunn was watching him with kind of an uncomfortably worshipful gaze. 

“I’ll be watching through these babies,” Tony said, shoving contacts cases are Hunt and Carter. They put them int without fuss until they realized that Clint didn’t have one. “I’m not allowed to put anything in Clint’s eyeballs. SHIELD would kill me if I fucked up their top sniper.” 

“I would kill you if you fucked up my eyes,” Clint mumbled but he was quickly sinking into mission mode where the only thing on his mind was the objective and how many shots it would take to get to it. He looked a bit uncomfortable without his bow but there wasn’t going to be nearly enough space for him to need it running around in the basement of a bar. 

Carter and Hunt were waiting at the van door to jump out and whisk themselves away into the night and Clint was about to jump out when Tony put a hand on his arm and stopped him. Clint turned around and Tony grabbed him by his hips and pulled them flush together so he could kiss him properly. Clint made a soft noise against Tony’s mouth and Tony pushed more forcibly until Clint’s hands came up to stabilize himself with a hard grip around Tony’s shoulders. Hunt cleared his throat quietly and Clint pulled away. 

“Come back safe, babe,” Tony said cheerfully. Clint rolled his eyes but he was finally smiling for once during the entire day. He, Hunt, and Carter jumped out of the van and vanished into the poorly lit side streets.

Clint scrubbed his wrist over his lips as soon as he was out of the van. He could always count on Tony to give a show even if he didn’t want it. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, centering himself again. When he opened his eyes again, Hunt and Carter were looking at him curiously, waiting. “Let’s go.”

———

Will knew that if he passed out there was a chance that he might not wake up again. He blinked rapidly to try to clear the black spots on his vision but they didn’t go away and he slouched in his chair against the restraints. Dr. Harper had left him there after the snake bite, cackling about genius plans or some shit. Will couldn’t feel his fingers or his toes but he wasn’t sure how much of that was an effect of the poison and how much was just being stuck in the same position for so long. 

He heard the sounds of fighting going on outside but it was so hazy that he couldn’t place what exactly was going on. The security guard looked a bit nervous and had taken out his gun to point it at the door. Will tugged at the chains slightly, thinking about what it would be like to just be able to get away and smack those chains up against the guard’s head. He’d laughed more than was necessary at Will’s pain, generally whenever Dr. Harper laughed maniacally. 

The door suddenly slammed open and Will’s pounding headache made him actually let out a shout at the noise. There was a gunshot and the guard fell to the floor and suddenly there was hands on Will’s body, carefully smoothing and touching at all of the injuries.

“Will? Will, come on I need you to stay awake,” a voice that he knew so well said in as close a tone to panic as he could get.

“Clint?” Will questioned.

“Yeah, yeah it’s me. Come on, I’m going to get you out of here. Just sit tight.” Will wanted to quip about having anything else to do but sit but Clint was already behind him, working furiously at the locks on the chains and it didn’t take long before they loosened and Will sagged with nothing to hold him up. Clint grabbed him and pulled him to his feet, supporting as much of his weight as he could. “Your boyfriend and girlfriend are outside holding everyone off. We need to move, come on,” Clint murmured in his ear. 

“Kay,” Will mumbled. Clint let out a shaky breath and Will wanted to ask him what the problem was. Clint never sounded this afraid. “Clint?” Will mumbled. It came out slurred.

“Sh, sh, we’re going to get you out,” Clint said. He smoothed a hand over the side of Will’s face like he did whenever he was worried about something that Will had gotten himself into. Clint practically dragged Will out into the hallway, one arm around Will’s waist, pulling him tight against his own body, and brandishing a gun with the other. He made merciless killshots every time an enemy showed up. Will would have complained about killing people had he been more aware of his surroundings.

“Hunt, I’ve got him,” Clint said into a comm. “Hurry up. He needs medical attention fast.” Clint shifted so that he could support even more of Will’s weight and Will wanted to apologize for being useless. Clint made another head shot. 

Will slipped into unconsciousness.


	3. Chapter 3

Barton hadn’t said a word since they brought Will to SHIELD’s medical bay. He’d sat outside the room while they performed surgery to try to close up dozens of lacerations and fix broken ribs and fight the snake poison in his blood. He kept completely still, perched on his toes in one of the cheap plastic chairs, staring straight ahead, forearms resting on his knees, and hands loose between them. Stark sat next to him, working on something on his StarkPad that he’d pulled from nowhere, every once in a while reaching over to rub Barton’s shoulder, back, or thigh. Barton never reacted.

Ethan was across from Barton, just to the side of his laser line of sight. He remembered Stark mentioning that Barton was a marksman and he could definitely see it now in the perfect balance he kept on his toes and the way he remained completely motionless. This was a man used to waiting.

A nurse came out after several hours of surgery and Barton made his first move to turn and look at her. Stark was rubbing his hand up and down Barton’s thigh comfortingly. “He’s going to be alright. There won’t be any lasting damage but he’ll have to stay in recovery for a few days.”

“Can we see him now?” Barton asked.

“He’s asleep, Agent,” she replied and it occurred to Ethan that the people here probably knew Barton - which would explain why he hadn’t been getting weird stares for his waiting position of choice. When Barton just continued to stare at her she sighed and said, “When we move him to a recovery room you can but only because I know that we can’t keep you out.”

Stark’s hand was tight enough around Barton’s thigh that his fingertips were disappearing into the dips of Barton’s flesh. “Clint, babe?” Stark questions. Barton looked startled but turned his attention to Stark. “Let’s go get coffee or something from down in the cafeteria, let the nurses movie Will without you standing over them menacingly.”

“I don’t stand menacingly,” Barton grumbled but he got down from the chair anyway, slowly stretching his legs and back that must have been stiff from staying in that unusual position for so long. “Come on, Hunt,” Barton said without the snap that he’d been using up to the rescue of his brother. “If I don’t get to stay, _you_ don’t get to stay.” Ethan got up to follow him and after a moment, Jane and Benji got up as well. 

Stark and Barton spoke quietly to each other while they walked, mentioning places and people and things that the IMF team didn’t know or understand. Stark trailed his fingers down the back of Barton’s arm until he met Barton’s hand and tangled their fingers together. Barton didn’t seem to mind too much although he did bump their shoulders together with a quiet huff of laughter.

The coffee in the cafeteria was disgusting of course but Stark chugged his down like it was water and Barton and Ethan had a moment when they said it wasn’t the worse they’d ever had. Barton mentioned a place in Uruguay and Ethan commiserated with an anecdote about a time in Rajasthan. Stark just said that it tasted better than some of the stuff he’d made in his lab before and Barton actually looked like he was going to have a seizure at that and gave Stark a waspish dressing down about eating and drinking his own lab creations  - but there was a little smile on his face the whole time.

By the time they finished their coffee and made their way to Will’s new room, the nurses had already situated him comfortably and he was settled amid all of the tubes and wires necessary to make sure he was going to stay alive. Barton grabbed the only chair in the room and hunkered down. Ethan took one from the hallway outside and sat down across from Barton, trailing his fingers over the IV in Will’s hand.

Stark kissed the top of Barton’s head and said he was going to head back to the tower to get some clothes that would fit Will when he woke up and so that Barton could change. Jane and Benji stayed in the room for a while but after Barton and Ethan’s silence became a bit too awkward they both left to go find lunch.

Ethan accepted the silence as a necessity. He didn’t know Barton, Barton didn’t know him. Barton seemed to know a lot _about_ him but they weren’t friends, they weren’t even friendly in-law acquaintances. Ethan decided to try to strike up a conversation with this man that he was probably going to have to be at least friendly to in passing once Will woke up. “So Will said that  you spent some time as a mercenary,” he attempted.

Barton looked up at him for a split second. “Yeah,” he answered in a challenging tone.

“I just… wondered why you didn’t go ahead and join IMF with Will,” Ethan asked. 

“Didn’t want to,” Barton answered blandly. 

“Liar.”

Barton and Ethan both looked down at Will in surprise. He was awake long before he was supposed to be and his voice was horribly weak and scratchy, probably because of the screaming and also the rope bruise around his throat. 

“Stop talking,” Barton snapped. Ethan wanted to say something about being nice but Barton was sliding his fingers through his brother’s hair with a quiet smile. “You’re going to hurt yourself more and then where would I get another twin?”

Will turned his eyes to Ethan when he realized he couldn’t move his head very well. “Clint was protecting me from a bad mercenary deal we did together. We used to double team a lot of jobs,” he coughed painfully and Barton’s hands smoothed gently over his chest. “People thought we were the same person. So when it went bad, Clint took the hit and told me to get out while I could.”

Barton was rubbing a soothing pattern onto the back of Will’s hand with his thumb. He wasn’t looking at Ethan either.

“Will…” Ethan said quietly. 

“So you really should stop glaring at him,” Will said teasingly but his voice was so quiet it was impossible to forget that he wasn’t really in any shape to even be teasing. “Clint is the reason that I got to meet you.” He shoved weakly at Barton’s hands. “And you should stop glaring because you’re the reason I met Ethan.”

“That could be a bad thing,” Barton muttered.

“Clint,” Will mumbled. “It’s a good thing.”

“If you say so.”

 

———

 

Will spent several days in the hospital and Clint was therefore required out of necessity to spend several days with Ethan Hunt. He didn’t like Ethan. Ethan Hunt was a reckless bastard who threw himself into all kinds of dangerous situations without regard for himself or, often times, his team. Will told him later that Ethan was a lot like Clint. Clint denied it vehemently. 

Clint and Ethan ended up in Will’s room a lot, one on each side. Ethan nodded off quite a bit but Clint never slept unless Tony was also in the room, sitting in a chair against the wall with his head down looking at his StarkPad. Tony actually managed to keep quiet when he was in Will’s room, probably because he knew that Clint needed him to be there to watch his back while he slept. Tony spent a lot of time touching Clint while he was around too - which was not altogether unusual but it wasn’t his “I always want to have sex with you everywhere” touches that he normally did. They were the comforting, it’s going to be okay, you’re alright, I’ve got you kind of touches that Tony did when Clint got hurt and it took a bit before Clint realized that for Tony, it was almost like seeing Clint in that hospital bed. 

Will finally woke up for an extended period of time and spent most of it talking quietly with Ethan about some IMF stuff that he needed to take care of. Clint was fine with that. He kept his hand around Will’s and Will didn’t try to pull away. 

Ethan eventually had to step out for a minute and Will turned his full attention on his twin. “You look like shit,” Will said.

Tony snorted from behind Clint and he rolled his eyes. “Thanks, you don’t look so great yourself.”

Will gave him a gentle smile. “You can go back to your own apartment and sleep you know.”

“Or you can come back to my bed and sleep,” Tony suggested.

Will raised his eyebrows and Clint realized that Will didn’t know that Tony was, in fact, Clint’s… boyfriend or whatever juvenile term Tony wanted to slap on it today. “Will,” he said with a sigh, “That’s Tony. We’re sleeping together.”

Will laughed as hard as he dared with the injuries to his vocal chords. “You’re sleeping with Tony Stark. Of course. That explains a lot.”

Clint made a soft humming noise in agreement. “And I’ve had to play nice with your boyfriend for the entire time you’ve been out.”

“The horror,” Will answered.

“Yeah he’s a pain in the ass.”

Will smirked slightly and Clint rolled his eyes, knowing precisely what thought just went through Will’s head. “He’s a lot like you, you know,” Will said.

“It is not comforting that you decided to date someone ‘just like’ your twin,” Clint remarked.

“You dated Natasha for a while,” Will reminded him.

“At least she’s a girl. She has entirely different equipment,” Clint argued but in the tone of someone who’s done this a lot before and the arguing is just for ceremony’s sake.

“You told me that you liked her because it was like being around me,” Will reminded him.

Tony was cracking up in the corner and Clint didn’t even turn to flip him off. Tony stood up and slung his arms around Clint’s shoulders and propped his chin on the top of Clint’s head. “I like you. Can we keep you?” Tony asked Will.

“No. And if you say a single thing about twin fantasies, I’m going to hurt you,” Clint answered. But he lifted the hand that wasn’t attached to Will’s to run lightly along Tony’s forearm. Will was giving him a knowing smile that he did not appreciate. “You should be able to leave soon, as long as you swear to not do anything too strenuous, including sex.” Clint made a face.

Will nodded acceptingly and then asked, quietly. “Did you get him?”

Clint bit down on his bottom lip. “Yeah. Ethan got him.”

“Good.”

Clint pulled out of Tony’s grip just enough to be able to reach Will’s face and he brushed a hand down the side of Will’s cheek. “You’re safe.”

“I know.”

“Does this mean we can invite you and grumpy secret agent over for Christmas?”

“Shut up, Tony.”


End file.
